Yechury re-elected CPM general secretary

HYDERABAD: The CPM on Sunday unanimously re-elected Sitaram Yechury as its General Secretary for another three years and he pledged to take steps to oust the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Yechury’s re-election took place on the last day of the party’s 22nd Congress here, Communist Party of India-marxist leader and former Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar announced.

Sarkar said Yechury, 65, was elected by a 95-member new Central Committee, which also elected a 17-member new Politburo. Tapan Sen and Nilotpal Basu are the new faces in the Politburo.

“Yechury’s election was unanimous. There was no contest,” Sarkar said.

Yechury, who has been a member of the CPM since 1974 when he joined its student wing, was first elected the CPM General Secretary in 2015.

Born in Chennai, Yechury was educated in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, a city where he has spent most of his life.

Re-elected to the top post a year ahead of the general elections, Yechury said the CPM’S first goal was to oust the BJP-RSS Modi government.

He said they were mounting a challenge to the neo-liberal offensive that was aggressively unleashed by the Modi government and the RSS-BJP combine.

“We are declaring to the country and to the whole world that we will not allow secular democratic foundations of India to be torn asunder by these communal forces and India shall remain united,” he said to thunderous applause by delegates gathered from across India.

He said he would try to fulfil the immense responsibility of this office to the best of his capability.

“If there is one message that has gone out from this 22nd party Congress, it is that the CPM has emerged united and determined to carry our the revolutionary task of putting forward alternative policy framework against ruling classes’ policies,” he said.

In the newly-elected Central Committee, there are 20 new members. While 19 names were announced, one seat is kept vacant for a woman. The party also announced Rajinder Negi and Sanjay Parate as permanent invitees. The six special invitees are V S Achuthanandan, Mallu Swarajyam, Madan Ghosh, Paloli Mohammed Kutty, A P Ramaiah and K Varadharajan.

The five-member Central Control Commission will be headed by Basudev Acharia.

The members are P Rajendran, S Sridhar, G Ramulu and Bonani Biswas.